Graph Story

The Challenge

This activity needs your imagination!

Start with a graph (choose one from below) and create a story from it!

It is all about the "shape" of your story.

Feel free to move the graph up, down, left or right, scale it, or flip it to suit your story.

Scaling: making it steeper means things are happening faster.
Flipping: turns an increase into a decrease or vice versa.

How to Build Your Story

Look at your chosen graph and think about:

Example: The Bathtub Mystery

Graph chosen: Up Flat Down

Axes:

  • Horizontal (x-axis): Time (minutes)
  • Vertical (y-axis): Water level in bathtub (inches)

The Story:
"I turned on the faucet, and the tub filled steadily with warm water (Up). I turned off the tap and relaxed in the bath for 15 minutes (Flat). Finally, I pulled the plug and watched all the water drain away (Down)."

Story Starters

The Graph:
f(x) = x2
The Story:
"... suddenly gravity takes over ..."

(Note: flip the graph upside down for that one!)

The Graph:
f(x) = 1/x
The Story:
"... more and more people arrive to help paint the fence, so the time left to finish drops closer and closer to zero ..."
The Graph:
Up Flat Down
The Story:
"... after walking for a while I arrived at the shops ..."

The Graphs

Choose one of these graphs:

Line graph that rises, stays horizontal, then rises again

Up Flat Up

Line graph that rises, stays horizontal, then slopes downward

Up Flat Down

Straight line graph intersecting the y-axis with constant slope

Linear
f(x) = mx + b

Graph of reciprocal function f(x) = 1/x with curves in quadrants 1 and 3

f(x) = 1/x

Parabola graph of f(x) = x^2 opening upward with vertex at origin

f(x) = x2

Square root graph starting at origin and curving gently upward to the right

f(x) = √x

V-shaped graph of absolute value function f(x) = |x| centered at origin

f(x) = |x|

Exponential curve f(x) = e^x rising rapidly as x increases
f(x) = ex

"Backwards" Challenge

Common Functions Graphs of Functions in Nature Real World Graph Activity Index